The New Yorker | Still Lives

"In the seventeenth century, the French Academy identified and ranked five genres of painting. Still-life came in dead last, which did not deter artists—they’ve been turning up truth in humble subjects since before Vesuvius buried Pompeii. (For exquisite proof, visit the Met.) The enterprising curator Alex Allenchey has enlisted six gifted painters—Amanda Baldwin, Deborah Brown, Zach Bruder, Aaron Elvis Jupin, Annie Pearlman, and Polly Shindler—to suggest that, in our age of excess, still-life might be a form of resistance. Maybe, maybe not, but the show is at once eclectic and focussed, and well worth seeking out. Baldwin, a particular highlight, toggles between flat and illusionistic space in “Ripe Sight” and scampers through centuries of tradition, from landscape painting on Chinese porcelain to a convex reflection (a staple of Netherlandish vanitas) to Lichtenstein-like Ben-Day dots. The sheer decorative glee of Shindler’s thoroughly charming “Green Rocking Chair” is an antidote to Trump-addled headlines."